Methods of Limiting the Domain Name Service Traffic Against Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

Abstract

The goal of the research described in this paper is to find methods of limiting the Domain Name Service (DNS) traffic against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks. Since DNS is a core network service, the protection of DNS servers is vital for the whole network infrastructure. In view of the different forms of DDoS attacks on DNS servers (like the DNS Amplification Attack), the implementation of effective preventive methods becomes very important. This article describes the research work done in the Academic Scientific Research Computer Network of Armenia (ASNET-AM) managed by the Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems (IIAP) of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (NAS RA), targeted to the deployment of the improved methods of limiting the DNS traffic against DDoS attacks. Special attention was given to User Diagram Protocol (UDP)-based Amplification Attacks resulting in Distributed Reflective Denial of Service (DRDoS) attack. This paper includes a description of best practice configuration of protection methods for the most widely used Name Server Software - “Berkeley Internet Name Domain” (BIND9) package.